I'm in the Red Mansion

Next, Feng Ziying's 10,000 soldiers became busy.

The truth is, the eight major salt merchants' industries are spread all over the south of the Yangtze River, and their wealth is enough to rival a country, and they have too many things.

Therefore, a lot of manpower is naturally needed.

These days, the people of Jiangnan have enjoyed the excitement.

They saw boxes of gold, silver and jewelry being carried out from the homes of the eight major salt merchants, and saw rare antiques, many of which were treasures they had never seen in their entire lives.

It's really an eye-opener.

Not to mention them, even Feng Ziying was a descendant of a noble family and his family was quite wealthy.

However, when they raided the eight major salt merchants, they were also shocked by their wealth.

There were many treasures in the homes of the eight major salt merchants that even a prince like him had never seen.

Feng Ziying originally planned to transport all the belongings to the capital after confiscating the house.

He did not expect that the eight major salt merchants would have so much wealth.

Feng Ziying calculated that if all the things were copied out, it would probably take more than a dozen ships to send them away.

But before sending it away, you always have to find a place to store it.

It’s not easy just to find this place, I’m afraid there will be a mountain of them.

Feng Ziying himself was shocked when he saw all this wealth.

He was really afraid that something might go wrong.

After much deliberation, Feng Ziying finally decided to send a batch to the capital first.

As for the remaining ones, whether to send them in one or two batches will be decided when the time comes.

Soon, Feng Ziying loaded three large ships with the easiest items to carry, such as gold, silver, and valuables.

Then he sent three thousand soldiers to escort him to the capital.

As for Lin Ruhai, after arriving at Feng Ziying's headquarters, he began to secretly interrogate the eight major salt merchants.

But he never showed up.

This time, the emperor is not only going to confiscate the eight major salt merchants.

And we also need to rectify the officialdom in Jiangnan.

Of course, in fact, the emperor wants to rectify more than just the officialdom in Jiangnan.

The entire Daxia officialdom needs to be rectified.

But it has to be done one place at a time, and Jiangnan, because of the eight major salt merchants, is the first to be affected.

After interrogation, Lin Ruhai discovered with great pain.

Just as he had expected, the officialdom in Jiangnan was rotten from the root.

From top to bottom, there are not many good officials.

But, we can't just remove the entire Jiangnan from top to bottom and replace them all with a group of new people?
If this happens, the entire Jiangnan region will be in chaos.

Therefore, next, Lin Ruhai had no choice but to hold his nose and look for a few officials who were not so evil and still had some conscience among this group of corrupt officials.

Lin Ruhai planned to use these people to prop up the officialdom in Jiangnan first.

Then, after Jiangnan has stabilized, we will find out their faults and punish them.

Next, Lin Ruhai ordered his men to arrest them all.

This is actually a means of misleading people.

One reason was to protect these people. Lin Ruhai had personally experienced the chaos in the officialdom of Jiangnan.

Secondly, it was also to confuse and paralyze the rest of the Jiangnan officialdom.

Lin Ruhai's move indeed made the officials in Jiangnan relax their vigilance.

Because everyone knows that there is no one with a clean record in the officialdom from top to bottom.

If a person is too strict, he will have no followers; if the water is too clear, there will be no fish.

The emperor always looks for someone to help him govern the country.

Lin Ruhai had already captured enough people, enough for him to report to the emperor when he returned.

Well, at this time, the officials in Jiangnan actually didn’t know about Lin Ruhai’s arrival.

They also thought that these arrested officials were all arrested by Feng Ziying.

Although they had doubts about why Feng Ziying arrested these officials.

After all, these people who were arrested were still considered a clean group among them.

They could only guess that it was because Feng Ziying, a military general, did not understand the officialdom.

And Lin Ruhai arrested the officials he selected.

They were quickly subdued.

There may be people in this world who are brave enough not to fear death, but these officials are definitely not among them.

These officials were not stupid. Lin Ruhai guaranteed their lives and even entrusted them with important tasks after he cleaned up the Jiangnan officialdom.

How could they not be loyal to him wholeheartedly?
With the help of Lin Ruhai, these officials continued to gather their confidants and make plans to stabilize the officialdom.

The rectification of Jiangnan officialdom cannot be accomplished overnight, or even in ten days or half a month.

Lin Ruhai was not in a hurry and began to deploy step by step.

Lin Ruhai had already made plans to stay in Jiangnan for the rest of the year.

……

But half a month later, three cargo ships arrived at the capital's dock under the escort of three thousand soldiers.

Soon, they found enough carriages and started moving the goods themselves.

It took three ships to transport more than a hundred vehicles before the transportation was completed.

Next, they drove the horse-drawn carriages and headed straight for the capital.

Since we were in the capital, there was no need to conceal these carriages.

After all, the news that the eight major salt merchants in Jiangnan had their properties confiscated had already spread throughout the country.

And when three thousand soldiers escorted more than a hundred carriages straight to the capital, the people of the capital were also enlightened.

Such wealth was the first time that even though the people of the capital were well-informed, the people there had seen so much wealth.

This made the people of the capital city marvel at it.

Soon, all the carriages were escorted outside the palace.

Jia Cong had already learned the news, so he sent Zhou Liang and others to accept it.

This time, the cargo included 26 million taels of silver and 200,000 taels of gold.

As for other treasures, there are countless of them.

And this is only one-third or even less than the wealth of the eight major salt merchants.

If we seize the eight major salt merchants, the whole of China will be well fed immediately.

With this wealth, many of Jia Cong's plans can be implemented immediately.

Jia Cong first ordered someone to escort 26 million taels of silver to the national treasury.

The rest was all put into the imperial treasury.

Although a lot of silver was seized from the confiscated property, most of it still had to be turned over to the national treasury.

Even though Jia Cong was the emperor, he could not easily transfer the money in the national treasury.

Only the money in the treasury is his own, and he can spend it however he wants.

Jia Cong left behind gold and treasures accumulated by the eight major salt merchants, all of which could be used to reward people.

As a result, it took three full days just to collect these treasures.

The eunuchs in the palace were so exhausted that they almost lost half their lives.

Jia Cong took the queen to the treasury and let her choose as she pleased.

When Lin Daiyu saw these treasures, she was also amazed.

But she just picked one at random.

Jia Cong couldn't bear it, so he carefully selected a few items and gave them to her.

The other women naturally received rewards.

Jia Cong also ordered people to send a lot of things to the Empress Dowager.

The Queen Mother naturally had no need to spend money, but she would occasionally reward people, so there must be good things from the Queen Mother. With the money, the research institute could speed up its progress.

……

In Jiangnan, Feng Ziying's progress was very rapid, and the first batch had just been sent to the capital.

The second batch of property has also been packed up.

After the three thousand soldiers return, they will be loaded onto the ship and escorted to Beijing.

As for the remaining property, most of it was shops and land.

Although these are valuable, they are not easy to cash in immediately.

As for the land, these do not need to be converted into cash.

According to the emperor's order, it directly belongs to the imperial land.

After the major replacement of officials in Jiangnan is completed, local officials will directly lease the land to the people according to location and population.

Because it was royal land, Jia Cong was not interested in the rent, so he did not collect rent for ten years, which was equivalent to letting the people work for free for ten years.

In fact, Jia Cong's original intention was to nationalize these lands.

Even in the future, all of China's land will be nationalized.

However, we cannot be too radical nowadays.

Because when he first ascended the throne, the new policy he most wanted to introduce was to take back all the land.

But on this point, not to mention Lin Ruhai and Grand Secretary Kou, even Grand Secretary Qin said frankly that they could not do it.

Therefore, Jia Cong had no way to force it.

However, Jia Cong believed that as long as he continued to work hard, he could recover all the land bit by bit.

As long as it is done secretly and not made public, it will not cause much sensation.

It just takes time.

It may take dozens, hundreds of years, or even longer to achieve this.

It is not something that can be accomplished in one or two generations.

But as long as you persevere, you will be able to do it sooner or later.

Of course, it is also possible that the new policies will fail if the descendants are unfilial.

As for shops, there are even more.

There are simply too many shops controlled by the eight major salt merchants.

Feng Ziying could only take his time. This kind of thing couldn't be done quickly.

After all, there are many wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan.

But it is not easy for them to take over so many stores at once.

After all, if you sell it too quickly, the price will inevitably be greatly discounted.

This is the kind of thing Feng Ziying absolutely does not want to see.

This was the first time the emperor ordered him to do something, so he had to do it beautifully.

Therefore, he would rather sell it slowly than sell it cheaply.

As for Lin Ruhai, the progress was also very rapid.

As for the evidence, Feng Ziying gave him part of it.

Lin Ruhai personally interrogated the eight major salt merchants and obtained some more evidence.

Those officials whom he had high hopes for and arrested in advance secretly prepared detailed evidence for him.

With these evidences, Lin Ruhai can start to close the net.

However, there are a lot of big fish in this net, so we must be careful not to let the other party lose all the fish.

Lin Ruhai started to take action and officials from Jiangnan were arrested one after another.

All the property of the officials who were arrested was confiscated.

At this time, Feng Ziying also started to get busy.

He had two missions when he came to Jiangnan. The first one was to raid the homes of the eight major salt merchants.

The second task is to fully assist Lin Ruhai.

Naturally, he did whatever Lin Ruhai said.

As Lin Ruhai began to arrest officials, a panic was once again caused in the officialdom of Jiangnan.

However, Lin Ruhai had already made a plan.

Although those he arrested at this time were all officials from important departments, he was still able to leave some officials hoping for luck.

They thought it would not affect them, so even though it caused panic, no one would take the risk.

After Lin Ruhai is arrested, officials will be immediately selected to fill the vacancies.

These selected officials are all officials who retired in Jinling City.

During the Ming Dynasty, there were two capitals, Beijing and Nanjing.

There are also two teams, one in Beijing and one in Nanjing.

However, the team in Nanjing is basically made up of officials who have been marginalized and frustrated, and it is just a place for them to retire.

Daxia also continued to use the Ming Dynasty's team, and there was also a team in Nanjing.

Many idle officials live here in their retirement years.

The Chinese dynasty was established not long ago, so naturally these officials still exist.

Now, it is just right to use these officials to fill the vacancies.

It was precisely because of the existence of these officials, coupled with the fact that Lin Ruhai had bribed officials in advance.

These people are enough to fill the vacancies, so Lin Ruhai dares to act so recklessly.

With the rise of these officials, the officialdom in Jiangnan became stable again.

And Lin Ruhai also dared to let go and do things boldly.

As more and more officials were arrested, the remaining officials finally began to panic.

They jointly submitted a memorial to impeach Feng Ziying, and bribed court ministers in an attempt to get rid of Feng Ziying.

It is a pity that because Lin Ruhai hid himself so well, until this moment, they still didn't know that it was Lin Ruhai hiding behind them and plotting against them step by step.

Therefore, their wishful thinking is doomed to fail.

Their impeachment memorials were sent to the capital as quickly as possible.

However, these memorials were like a drop in the ocean. They were directly withheld by the emperor and kept in his palace without causing any waves.

At this time, Lin Ruhai suddenly sped up the pace and began to arrest people on a large scale.

It was not until this time that officials in Jiangnan began to panic.

However, it is too late to react now.

The net has been set, and even if they want to fight to the death, it is impossible.

However, the first batch of officials who were arrested were released by Lin Ruhai.

They made up for their crimes and helped Lin Ruhai to quickly stabilize the situation in Jiangnan.

At this point, how could those Jiangnan officials not know that they had been deceived?

But now that I realize it, it's too late.

In the end, the Jiangnan officialdom was almost wiped out.

However, because Lin Ruhai was shrewd and shrewd, it ultimately did not cause much turmoil.

However, the common people in the south of the Yangtze River have opened their eyes.

They grew up in Jiangnan, but this is the first time they have seen such a bustle.

First, the eight major salt merchants were arrested, and then almost all the officials were arrested and their homes were searched.

At this time, Lin Ruhai also stepped forward decisively and posted a notice listing the crimes of these officials one by one.

They were all arrested for crimes such as corruption, bribery, dereliction of duty, and disregard for human life.

The evidence is listed in great detail and is by no means a list of charges.

However, is there no corrupt officials in any dynasty?
However, such large-scale arrests of corrupt officials are rare.

Only Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty could have slaughtered corrupt officials on such a large scale, right? (End of this chapter)